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I always notice in the shoes you are wearing thread everyone seems to keep their laces pretty loose. I have a narrow foot so my laces are always a bit tighter looking than what I usually see ( not Rambo laced by any means).My question is this: Is there an advantage performance wise to skating in a shoe with the laces that loose or are you guys tying them a little tighter when you get around to skating them?
I tighten my laces a lot for skating to prevent my foot from jiggling around. A secure fit is definitely better for performance, but loose laces look much better imo, so I keep 'em loose whenever I'm not skating.
I have very flat feet, so for most shoes I need to put an extra tongue in under what is in there, almost always a Half Cab tongue as I had a lot of Half Cabs over the years (but never needed to beef them up at all) so once I have done this, it looks more normal and not at all puffy or blown out. Without the extra tongue, usually the sides of the laces area would almost be overlapping with a ton of spare shoe lace and look pretty funny, to say the least.
People used to do this to all shoes and big thick puffy tongues were the only way to go mid 2000s or so, almost too much but I am not here to talk about various fashion styles.
The weird thing is a lot of others I know almost have the opposite problem, where their feet are so tall and thick that they always have what looks like loose laces, when in fact they are almost too tight on their feet when laced up like mine so have to wear them with a lot more lace across, giving that look you mention.
That is not to say that when not skating (or even some while skating too), people don't loosen up their laces, like my Half Cabs are almost like slip ons when I am not skating, but different feet can give a very different look too.
I also add a thin extra insole sometimes too, the kind of thin flat foam thing from a $2 store or department store, which also helps my foot fit in some shoes better, so that might work too. I put it under everything else, but you can put it on top easily enough too.